Just to give the positives of the internet in this context. Iím a 21 year old, with no A levels or university degree, Iím not earning much money, I donít socialise with intellectuals and Iím fairly lazy. Pre-internet I donít imagine I would have:

1) been able to access huge amounts of academic information (studies, research, streaming lectures online, etc.).
2) been able to read numerous broad sheets from all over the world for free
3) access to fact checkers
4) the ability to instantly fact check something myself
5) very immediately find out the history of a story
6) have respected people pointing me towards other information sources (for example academics on twitter)

Of course itís crucial that I actively go out of my way to find points of view that disagree with my own. The internet has facilitated lots of niche political echo chambers.

Well of course those are all good things, but I don't think anyone here was going as far as "The internet is bad" - the argument being that the internet has been bad for print media, which seems pretty unarguable, and even that an early adopter of online journalism like the Guardian is suffering due to competition from relative upstarts such as BuzzFeed.

There are winners and losers with almost any new technology. The internal combustion engine was bad for people who made a living breeding, tending or trading in horses.

Yeah that's all good stuff. I guess the issue is that a lot of the broad sheets, e.g., that you've been able to access for free are probably going to go bottom-up fairly soon because nobody is paying for them. I wonder if academia is suffering a similar financial blow from having journals made free online?

perhaps the only way forward for some newspapers will be being supported by wealthy benefactors, like artists were centuries ago (or like jeff bezos with the washington post). of course, some of those benefactors might at times want to influence editorial (like murdoch with the ny post, for sure...)

MSNBC's Chris Matthews made a clarifying point, highlighted in Brian Stelter's "Reliable Sources" newsletter: "[W]e're only learning the truth of all these endless meetings with the Russians because of good reporting ... We're getting great print coverage by the hour. And that's the only reason this administration is admitting things. Trump didn't act on Flynn until it was exposed by the press. The attorney general didn't recuse himself until today because the report ran in today's newspapers. This is an administration being driven by truth that's coming from somewhere else."

that how reporting works, tho. particularly political reporting (deep throat>watergate, daniel ellsberg>pentagon papers, etc.) it's very rare that investigative reporters simply stumble upon news or find it by digging endlessly, they don't have the time or resources.

I don't understand how Stig Abell now edits the TLS. He was editor of The Sun when it (he) published Katie Hopkin's call for refugees to be massacred. He's the worst sort of mercenary intellectual imo, I'll stick with the LRB.

The Following User Says Thank You to richwill For This Useful Post:

From New Internationalist, a pretty nice and positive organ. You too can have a £50 share in it, but you'll need to be quick - only a day or 2 left

just to update and inspire: the public have bought £492,750 worth of shares in new internationalist within a month. the vast majority of backers have bought the minimum amount, £50 but that's a hell of a lot of people, no mega rich backers, no corporate or big business backers to pull our strings, just fans of trusted, award winning non corporate backed media that has internationalism in its heart

they are now our owners, they now have a say in new internationalist and play a part in the way the magazine, the ethical shop and the book publications will grow. It's a brave model and worth watching to see how it goes from here

our supporters making their own endorsement films ranged from jarvis cocker and emma thompson to birgitta Jonsdottir and gavin turk, messages came in from all around the world, many voices in the global South saying how important the magazine has been to their struggles for justice

today, the great reverend billy is making a film with his choir to support us over this last four days. He has been a fan since someone gave him a copy in prison a decade ago

it'd be great if neon people got behind pushing the community share offer over these last four days and thanks to all of those who already have

we put out a lot of material for free online but the more people who back us or subscribe means the more good journalism we can do, the more unreported majority workd stories we can cover, the more neo liberal myths we can deflate. No compromising adverts, no agenda controlling owners, no hidden controlling boards, this is democratic media and it chill grow only a coding to the amount if people who get behind it and pull back from corporate backed media.

TBH it's all very well moaning about how crap the MSM are, but there are decent sources of news, like https://newint.org if you can be arsed to stop moaning and look past the metro & the grunter